Itongadol.- The Arab League on Sunday ordered journalists to leave a meeting of its foreign ministers in Cairo shortly after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas started addressing the session.
No reason was given for the decision, which also led to the suspension of the live broadcast of the speech.
It was also not clear who gave the order to turn the session into a closed meeting.
Before the session was closed to media coverage, Abbas started his speech by talking about the “coup” that Hamas staged in the Gaza Strip against the PA in 2007.
He pointed out that attempts to achieve reconciliation between his Fatah faction and Hamas had failed over the years.
Abbas noted that the first attempt to end the Fatah-Hamas conflict was launched in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
At this point and 30 seconds into his speech, an Arab League official walked up to Abbas and handed him a note that asked him to stop his speech until journalists are removed from the meeting hall.
Earlier, reports in several Egyptian media outlets quoted Abbas as saying that he was planning to declare at the Arab League gathering the end of his reconciliation pact with Hamas.
At a meeting with Egyptian media representatives in Cairo on Saturday night, Abbas said that his partnership with Hamas couldn’t continue as long as the situation in the Gaza Strip remains unchanged.
Abbas accused Hamas of running its own “shadow government” in the Gaza Strip through 27 directors-general who were managing various ministries.
“The Palestinian national consensus government can’t do anything on the ground,” Abbas complained, referring to the government that was established following the reconciliation deal with Hamas.
Abbas also scoffed at Hamas’s claim that it had won the war with Israel. “Which victory are they talking about?” he asked.
He also ridiculed Hamas’ rocket attacks at Israel during the war. “They fired 4000 rockets that killed three Israelis,” Abbas said.
He said that Hamas eventually and unconditionally accepted the same Egyptian cease-fire agreement it was offered at the beginning of Operation Protective Edge.
Abbas noted that when the cease-fire proposal was first offered, the number of Palestinians who had been killed in the war was 180.
Abbas was also quoted during the meeting with the Egyptian journalists as saying that the Fatah Central Committee has decided to suspend all contacts with Hamas until the movement agrees to have one authority that represents all Palestinians.
“If Hamas does not accept the establishment of a Palestinian state with one government, one law and one weapon, there will be no partnership between us,” he explained.
Abbas also demanded that the PA be the only party responsible for making any decision to declare war or sign a peace agreement with Israel.
Abbas came to Cairo to seek the backing of the Arab League for his new “peace initiative,” which envisages the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines in nor more than three years.
Before the Arab league session, Abbas held talks in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi on the peace plan and the latest developments in the region, according to a Palestinian official.
Hamas officials responded to Abbas’s allegations by urging him to stop “inciting” against their movement.
Salah Bardaweel, a senior Hamas official, said that Abbas’s statements show that he has “lost his political role.”
Bardaweel said that Abbas was now behaving in a manner that “does not suit a president.”
Abbas, he added, should “leave such polemics to spokesmen.”
Bardaweel also denied the charge that Hamas has its own “shadow government” in the Gaza Strip and accused Abbas of “misinformation.”
The Hamas official refused to comment on Abbas’s announcement that only 50 Hamas men were killed ruing the war in the Gaza Strip. “Even Israel still doesn’t know how many Hamas men were martyred,” he said. “Abbas is now trying to provoke us so that we would say something which he could relay to the occupation.”
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri rejected Abbas’s charges as “unjustified.”
Abu Zuhri also dismissed as “baseless” the figures provided by Abbas concerning the number of casualties in the Gaza Strip. He called on Abbas to stop communicating with Hamas through the media and give a chance to dialogue and understanding between the two sides.